Promises
by Katrina Marie Lupin
Summary: Even as she sat in the living room, not quite watching the telly, she watched him, in the dining room, tinkering with a tape player. There was no buzzing or whirring of the sonic screwdriver. There was no hum of the TARDIS about him. There was no slamming


It was like a dream come true. And she knew it, but it was still so strange.  
As much as she cherished the feel of her hand in his again, as much as her heart soared whenever he looked at her, as much as she smiled and giggled and cooed and sighed with joy, it was all still so very, very strange.  
"The walls of the world are closing again," he'd said, the gleam in his eye speaking in volumes what his voice didn't say - that he wished very much to find a corner to hide in, because once again, he'd saved the world, but at a price he had not been willing to pay. He was taking her back to the other world - the other world where he would never see her again. He shouldn't have seen her again now, but she knew he wanted her. He wanted her very much to stick around. To climb on board the TARDIS once more and take his hand and run, run across time and space, together, just the two of them, again. It was his quiet, stubborn arrogance that said 'this is what's best' that killed her most, the fact that he would rather do right by the universe than by her, that killed her. She knew it was cruel for her to expect him to choose otherwise, but she'd had the scantest traces of hope that he would do anything for her, no matter what.  
"But I spent all that time trying to find you!" she'd cried, tears in her eyes, the desperation and loss and pain she'd felt for so long finally having a chance to be known to the one man who was never there to hear her story - who'd been there for it, but who couldn't have understood the impact he'd had upon her life. "I'm not going back now"  
And like she'd always dreamed, he'd looked her in the eye, and then the scene played out like one of her constant nightmares, him looking to her with a twinge of pity she could only just see in the back of his eyes, the pain hiding behind his final decision. Advanced alien civilizations feared his quiet fury, but she'd feared his silent regret.  
It was like taking a dagger and after holding her close, stabbing her in the gut, slowly turning it, while still looking her in the eye, those words echoing in her mind. "But you've got to"  
The hurt and betrayal she'd felt vastly outweighed the sorrow and loss she'd suffered during her time in that other world, wondering if she could ever return to him, if he'd let her back, not wanting to think about the countless other companions who had gone before her, who'd probably fallen in love with him before, all of whom eventually found themselves trapped in their own sorry little lives. Sarah Jane had been abandoned on Earth. Jack, on the Game Station. Rose had been sent to a parallel universe.  
Even his own flesh and blood cried out at the Doctor's decision, hurt to be abandoned and betrayed like the accidental result of an experiment gone horribly wrong. The creation looked Frankenstein in the eye, and his eyes were full of anger and confusion. "You made me!" he cried, not understanding the subtle rejection of the Last of the Time Lords.  
'Born in battle - full of blood and anger and revenge,' he'd said, turning to her. "Remind you of someone"  
She thought back to the Doctor who had first held her hand. The one who had first looked to her with eyes of softness every so often, hiding behind his stony complexion. A warrior and soldier himself, harsh in the tongue, strong in body, and angry, angry at the world. It was true. She could see the same quiet, simmering rage in this new doctor, his solitary heart breaking as his sentence was given to him, his desire for rebellion and the chance to race across the stars. It seems the Doctor couldn't even show mercy to his own face. It left Rose with confirmation that it wasn't the faces, or the deeds, or the hours spent together, or even how many times you ran hand in hand, but it was that the Time Lord was like the little alien in the little girl on a little street in London, where a torch once went by. Yes, he had the greatest family on Earth, but he was separated from them all by galaxies of pride and detachment that throbbed in his two hearts like a jealous song that no one would ever sing with him. Rose even thought on Donna, and found herself believing that some day, even she would be cast away and sent back home, to fill the horrible penance one earned after running with the Doctor.  
Even as she sat in the living room, not quite watching the telly, she watched him, in the dining room, tinkering with a tape player. There was no buzzing or whirring of the sonic screwdriver. There was no hum of the TARDIS about him. There was no slamming and crazy running about as he dashed about the console. It was quiet and pensive, and purely tinkering. He was honestly trying to fix something purely to help, not just to fascinate himself with his cleverness or to find a new adventure that would distract him from his past. He was just... fixing something.  
The simple act would probably have gone unnoticed, but to her it was the plainest sign of truth she'd seen in a long time.  
"You'd made me better. Now you can do the same for him." This lost man, his one beating heart making him a stranger in his own body, the Gallifreyan mind within slowly fading into an average man's intelligence. It was sad to see his spark of intuition go, though it was a sign he was being folded into human society. He used screwdrivers, but boring, metal ones. He still drank tea with two sugars, still adored bananas, and still liked to revel with cheap, useless trivia, but it was never with the same promise of seeing it for yourself as the Doctor had had. This John Smith, who had once had a mind of fantastic journeys and otherworldly intelligence, was spending his days watching telly and eating chips, and she felt for him, she really did. She knew what it was like to spend day after day in a magical, time traveling, space machine, that was bigger on the inside, and then be dumped back on Earth and expected to go back to living a boring, mediocre life, day after day. She knew she wasn't the only one who had to go through this, but she could definitely say she got the right end of the bargain.  
"Here's your tea, love," Jackie says, placing a tea cup beside him. He looks up and then spots the saucer, and smiles up at her.  
"Sorry. Thanks, Jackie," and pauses to take a sip, giving a warm nod of approval. "Ooh, thank you. That is good. Thanks very much." He smiles, and Rose notices that this fellow apologizes a lot. For little things, but he's always apologising, and giving more gratitude than even his usual self did. It's like he knows he's been a burden in the past, and is ashamed with himself for it, and is not altogether comfortable with the fact that he was just passed on for someone else to take care of, when his own creator didn't want him. He doesn't say it, but when he's quiet, sometimes, Rose can see him turning everything back over in his mind, as if to see what else he could've done that would've made things better. And then he'd feel her eyes on him, and he'd look up at her and smile, a happy, silly little smile that made her grin in response. It didn't matter if on the inside she was brooding or crying or raging at the world. When he smiled, she did, too.  
It was his face after all.  
She remembered this man's explanation on that accursed beach not so long ago. "I look like him, and I think like him. Same memories, same thoughts, same everything. Except, I've only got one heart"  
'Except, I've only got one heart'  
The promise of a life with the Doctor - to 'be stuck' with him, to spend lazy afternoons strolling through the park and eating chips without worrying about monsters and aliens chasing after them - the promise of a normal life, with the blessing of his presence, was here for her. It was true she had seen two Doctors and known the true Doctor, and the duplicate, but there were times when he did something that was so... completely Doctorish, for lack of better word, that she forgot that she was trapped in an alternate universe, far from everything she'd grown up in, far from where the TARDIS would ever land, and far from the adventures they'd had. Besides a need to give him a real name - if only for legal purposes, as it was hard to live day to day life without existing somewhere - this man who went by John Smith was still Doctor to her, though in moments like these, where he sat at the table with an ordinary screwdriver and ordinary Earth tech, and an ordinary cup of tea, she found this homey version of the Doctor a wonderful change of pace to the panicked man he'd always been, hopping in his TARDIS from trouble to trouble, leaving chaos, mayhem, and often Death in their wake. The worst this man could do was chase the dog down the street when he tried to run away, or to catch the trolley before he missed it. And yet, she found herself liking that she wouldn't have to worry over him anymore, that she could always look and see him there, with her.  
On that distant beach, she'd heard the grind of that blue box, urging her pilot that they had to go. The word 'forever', and he turned to leave her forever after.  
And then, the final, most important test she could ever give him. The only thing that would allow her to walk away and not cry her heart out every night for the rest of her days. The only way she would be able to have peace, let alone happiness with this man beside her.  
"Both of you, answer me this," she'd said, looking to the two identical men beside her. On the right was the human, the one she could grow old with, but he was a copy. He was not the being she'd lost many nights of sleep over, but he was a replica. The true Doctor stood to her left, waiting quietly for her question. They both have the same characteristics - both shuffle their feet, both scratch the back of their necks when flustered, both speak far too fast to be understood, but she would only run with one of them.  
"When I last stood on this beach on the worst day of my life, what was the last thing you said to me?" she asked him, the Time Lord, the one who'd snatched her up one average day, and taken her away to fantastic worlds and marvelous adventures.  
He looked her in the eye, and answered, "I said, 'Rose Tyler"  
"Yeah, and how was that sentence going to end?" As the question hung in the salty air, she could feel the vice grip that had been on her heart since that day as she'd wondered what he was going to say. Wondered if he felt the same way or if he was going to tell her she was being a silly girl, and have the nerve to smile and say it was so 'human', in other words saying, not for him, not for a Time Lord. Would he answer honestly, and confess to the same feelings, or would he profess himself to be better than that?  
The look in his eye was defiant, like he didn't want to be burdened anymore by telling her the truth, since he was going to go away anyway, but she had to know. If he could answer the question, there was a chance that they could live their happily ever after. If not... well, she could go with the mortal Doctor, and she wouldn't have her heart broken every day by his inattentiveness, and they could still run hand in hand.  
"Does it need saying?" he asked. Though it really didn't - that was sign enough, he did love her back, she didn't need him to say it to know it, she'd known it for so long - it did need to be said now. Now, when she was deciding what to do with her life, before the chance to change would once again become impossible. The pain in her heart was worse than the nights after he'd left, when she'd cried out at the cruelty of the universe, to give him not enough time to say the words. But now she knew. It wasn't time. Time was no limit to the Time Lord. It was his own arrogance, his own beliefs in higher powers and how things should be done that would limit them, and that would leave her forever wanting. She could fly around in that blue box, but that's all they would do, until she finally got so old, he couldn't stand to look at her anymore, dying beside him, and he sent her home. She felt ashamed that she had given her heart to a man who didn't seem to appreciate the power he possessed. His last chance at redemption gone, she sorrowfully turned to his other half.  
"And you, Doctor?" she asked, asking the man who was not standing loftily on his binary vascular system, who was humbled by his sole heart and his limited lifetime, and whose own fate hung in the balance. The difference between Judge and Defendant was plain to see. Surely this man would admit it? He had nothing to lose, nothing to gain from lying to her. He wouldn't be revolted by the sight of her aging, and as a fellow mortal, he would appreciate her in her old age, more so with his past experiences. He could be the man that the Doctor could never be.  
"What was the end of that sentence"  
The look in his eyes was like that she'd seen so often before, when the Doctor had let his shields down. Unrelenting love. A soft, kind, sweet desire that tugged at your heartstrings, and made you want to hold him and kiss away his tears and never leave him ever again. But he wasn't hiding behind walls of duty and honour. He was standing before her as a man with a clean slate, who knew he was being given a second chance. He shared the past experiences of the Doctor, and knew what the Time Lord would miss. Knew that the Time Lord would never be a father again, never have a real family, would never spend holidays in the country, or buy a nice house, or get a real, flesh and bone dog. The Time Lord would never be able to live that kind of life. He lived too fast a life. He would never being able to stop and smell the roses and cherish them and be able to take them home to the missus like this Doctor could.  
And this Doctor could see that that was what she wanted. She wanted honesty, and openness, and the promise that the man who loved her, and who she loved, would be willing to love her back. She wanted a man who would dance with her at their 50th anniversary, both of them old and wrinkled, but still smiling at each other with that little twinkle in their eyes. She wanted an afternoon on the porch swing, when the wind was in the trees, sharing a cuppa. She wanted Christmases and Birthdays and consistency, not running for her life.  
As the man in her life, he had an obligation, and the pleasurable honour to make her the happiest woman in the world for all of her days.  
Like he'd wanted to do so many times, he laid a soft hand on her arm, and leant down, his lips so close to her ear, and his voice a soft caress as he whispered the words that she'd never hear from him if she left on that little blue box.  
"I love you, too. More than anything else in the universe." He straightened up and looked into her eyes to see her despair disappear, her doubts vanish, and true happiness return as a glimmer in her eyes. Like one of his many dreams, he could feel her small hands take the lapels of his suit as she pulled him towards her and gave him true love's first kiss. It was soft and loving, but full of wanting, and reassurance. He'd always be there for her, now and forever, if she'd only take him as he was, and she was telling him that yes, yes she would. She'd take him for everything he was, and that she was his forever.  
On her left, the Doctor gave a swallow, watching his fondest dream take place before him. He knew that it was still him, and that she would be happy. They would live a normal life, drink tea, have kids, raise a family. He would never have that, and he was happy for them. But at the same time, he wished very much that she'd chosen him, nonetheless. Granted, she still did, either way, but he knew that this would be the last time he'd ever see her, and that that kiss would no longer belong to him. The promise was gone. The gift, given to someone else. He would never say to her "I do," nor hold a bundle of joy with her, nor any of the other grand adventures that they had ahead of them. He felt sad, as he'd wanted very much to be the man in her life, but he knew he couldn't. Inside, both of his hearts broke, as he turned away. Behind him, the two lovers wrapped their arms around each other, fulfilling the dream that had haunted their sleep for a very long time, holding each other once more, and sharing a kiss of intimacy and love, and with the promise of only more to come.  
Still, when she heard the door close, Rose couldn't help but spin around to see that blue box. The promise it had held within was behind her, but the sight was still something she had longed for for so long. Amidst all the chaos, she'd never been able to venture its halls one last time, to see all that there was to be seen within the magician's magic box, and there would now be secrets left unknown to her for all of time. She hadn't realised she had left his side, running toward the box, the TARDIS, the ship of her dreams. But as it faded away, and her heart sunk like it had so many times before, she felt something that cured her of her tears. She turned to see him, holding her hand, his eyes burning with his own promise. 


End file.
